


Nightwatch

by entity1000909



Category: Neon Genesis Evangelion
Genre: Angsty Teenage musings, Canon? what Canon, wrote this when I was in distress myself and it's still one of my favorite angsty shorts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-29
Updated: 2018-12-29
Packaged: 2019-09-30 00:28:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17213723
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/entity1000909/pseuds/entity1000909
Summary: Shinji thinks about the past while guarding the city at night.Short and angsty.





	Nightwatch

**Author's Note:**

> Saved from one of my old blogs (auxiliums). Unbeta'd and unedited, if you find mistakes please let me know. I want to preserve the original but not the mistakes. 
> 
> Enjoy, or don't. It's just teen angst.

At this point, crying was useless. 

It was a bitter action, and fruitless because the tears would only accumulate in the liquid. There was not even the satisfaction of catharsis, only an itch in his eyes and a headache afterward. Eyes, blurred to the dark landscape kept a vigilant watch ahead, and tried to keep any acute sobs from turning into retching. Enjoy cleaning vomit out of the plug, assholes. 

Except, he wouldn’t do that to it her. The Eva was sentient. He had become accustomed to it, to the way it combed it’s, her fingers through his mind during entry. It would take him many years to realize that was the key to synchronizations, and why the dummy plugs wouldn’t work. That first question, that initial contact could only be reciprocated with equal consciousness. 

**Do you trust me?**  
_— Yes._

It she could keep his secrets for him, allow for a second of weakness in the sheath of nightwatch. He could keep his hands gripped firmly around the controls, and yet she would betray no broken prayers to the ones who constructed her. Do I trust you? His eyes flickered to the clock in the corner. Two more hours until watch was over. Through his own legs, he could tell that the legs of the Eva were getting stiff as they stood there watching, pulse rifle in hand.

To the passing stranger, it could have easily been mistaken for a statue. A specter at the gates, waiting for the things to crawl out of Pandora’s box until the hope shone through, but what was left of the city produced no such feathered thing. The Eva was merely a monster guarding ghosts. From here he could see the rubble where his school had used to stand. The last bastion of normality reduced to concrete dust and melted metal. Another wave of tears threatened to course through him, like a shiver at first. Teeth ground together in resistance, but the crying returned away. Less violent this time, but still as unsatisfying. Pull it together. 

**Do you trust me?**  
_Don’t look at me._

Why anyone still felt a need for the Eva was beyond him, but he didn’t ask questions. Questions only led to answers that satisfied an increasingly morbid curiosity, but rarely led to the truth. Truth, though, was something entirely dependent on perspective. If they told him nightwatch was for the good of the city, and he chose to believe it, then the resulting truth would be his fault alone. If they screamed at the people that the future still contained potential, and the people pointed their aching fingers to the constellations drawn out by the fallen as proof, then the blame could only be placed on them. Hope was the hamartia of the damned. At the very least, as long as he continued to pilot, he was a necessary evil, and therefore gripping to some control. 

**Do you trust me?**  
_Yes, because I am out of options._


End file.
